Mack turns four on Monday, so we decided to host a birthday party. To our horror, nearly everyone invited accepted — and all who accepted came. That meant that Saturday afternoon, 24 three- and four-year-old boys (and one two-year-old girl cousin and one little brother) took over the island that is Mack’s playroom.

The swarm was amazingly well behaved, but it did require a periodic “Freeze!” so that a census could be taken to make certain no one had escaped to some other part of the house, or worse, outside. (”Christopher? Are you sure you dropped him off? We don’t remember seeing him.”) There were moments when the boys seemed to realize that they had the adults grossly outnumbered, but they were easily held at bay with the cake knife.

The ice cream and cake was delayed until the last minute so that the children could be released to the custody of their parents before the sugar fully kicked in.